Compiling BIND

Now it's time to get your hands dirty. After you have the tar files, you just need to untar them into a suitable directory. They untar directly as src, doc, and contrib, so you should make an intermediate directory to hold them all. So, to compile BIND, go into the src directory. If you type make, the software will make a (good) guess about your OS and platform and compile BIND according to that.

You might have specific needs, though. On most platforms, the default is to compile with GNU gcc. However, if you have a Solaris machine, you might want to compile BIND with Sun's CC rather than GNU gcc. In that case, you must go into port/solaris and copy Makefile.set.sun over Makefile.set. Platform-specific settings all reside in port/platform, and in many cases, these override the generic makefiles in the source directories.

Installation instructions are provided in the INSTALL file, which also lists the platforms on which this version of BIND is known to work and on which platforms it should work. By default, BIND installs into /usr/local, but this will vary according to your platform. Check the Makefile.set for your platform to find out where it installs. If this default does not suit you, you can override it on the command line as described in the INSTALL file.

In normal cases, BIND should compile without problem. If you get into trouble, check that your compiler and libraries are current because your OS vendor might already have fixed your problem with a patch that you can install on your system. If it still does not work, you should check the newsgroups or mailing lists to see whether anyone is experiencing the same problems as you and whether someone have posted a solution to the problem. If not, you're on your own. You might get help by posting on the Net, but it's best if you try to figure things out for yourself before posting there. If you do post, though, be sure to give a lot of detail and include the error messages because that makes it easier for others to help you.